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Archive for the ‘Holiday’ Category

Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Frankenstein French Tips

Day 6 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails brings me to Frankenstein. There are 10 themes, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.

Frankenstein French tips Halloween nail art

I looked around the Interwebs for ideas and saw lots of really cute Frankenstein faces that I liked a lot. But I wanted to try to contribute something a little different to the conversation. I really liked this patchwork manicure that Fancy Schmancy Nails did for the Nail-aween challenge, and my original thought was to do something similar but only using shades of green. The idea of morphing it into Frankenstein French tips came to me after that. I searched around a bit and didn’t find anything that looked like this, but let me know if you find it elsewhere.
Frankenstein French tips Halloween nail art

For the base color, I used three coats of Color Club Tweet Me, a chartreuse creme (not the greatest formula, as I discovered doing this retro wallpaper nail art). I added one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat, and then taped off the tips and added a thick coat of Sinful Colors Exotic Green. I added another coat of Poshe, and then used a Kiss Nail Artist pen to draw the stitches.

Frankenstein French tips Halloween nail art

Simple Halloween nail art, but I was happy with the way they turned out.

Frankenstein French tips Halloween nail art

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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KBShimmer Witch Way?

I tried very hard to make it through this season without buying any indie Halloween-themed polishes, but the swatches I’ve seen of KBShimmer Witch Way? have made it impossible to ignore.

I finally broke down and bought it, and here it is. Amazing. Beautiful. So happy to have it.

KBShimmer Witch Way? indie halloween nail polish

KBShimmer Witch Way? is a dark purple jelly base loaded with holographic small hex and silver micro glitter. It’s just really vampy and fun.

KBShimmer Witch Way? indie halloween nail polish

These pictures are of three coats, plus one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat. It went on easily. The first coat was a little patchy and the second wasn’t quite enough for opacity on every nail, but the third evened everything out.

KBShimmer Witch Way? indie halloween nail polish

I didn’t wait for it to completely dry before adding Poshe, but it seemed to dry with an almost sticky or tacky look to it, not matte or satin by any means, but something just shy of full gloss, so I definitely wanted the top coat. With that, it’s perfect.

KBShimmer Witch Way? Halloween indie nail polish

KBShimmer Witch Way? is currently available at KBShimmer.com.

What Halloween-themed polishes could you not live without?

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Holiday, Swatches

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Ghosts and Goblins

It’s Day 5 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. for me, and the theme is ghosts and goblins. There are 10 themes, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.Ghosts Goblin Jack-o-lantern pumpkin Halloween nail art

As far as Halloween nail art goes, this one is pretty basic, really just a few doodles with some nail art pens.

For my ghost, I used two coats of Ulta Snow White. The green goblin starts off with two coats of Sinful Colors Exotic Green, while the two jack-o’-lantern pumpkin nails are two coats of a no-name orange creme from a polish line called Paris. The black “Boo” nail is based on two coats of Orly Liquid Vinyl.

Ghosts Goblin Jack-o-lantern pumpkin Halloween nail art

All of the black and white details were done with Nail Artist pens from Kiss, which came together as a pair. I bought them at Target. These types of pens are great, really no different than using a regular pen. The black was perfect for what I needed here; the white didn’t cover quite as well as I had hoped.

Ghosts Goblin Jack-o-lantern pumpkin Halloween nail art

If you do something like this, definitely do a practice run where you’re drawing upside down before you start drawing on your nail. There really wasn’t a good way to hold my hand where I could hold it with the tips pointed toward me and still draw on them.

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Mummy Water Marble

I couldn’t come up with anything unique for Day 4 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/Sassy Nails, so I modeled my mummy nails after my favorite version, from Colette at My Simple Little Pleasures, who is the queen of water marble nail art.

Obviously mine do not compare to hers, but I did give it the old college try. I tried to model my color choices on the ones she features in the video tutorial, but I realized after the fact that mine actually had too much white in it. Having more of the ivory and brown shades is what makes hers look more like mummy wrapping.

Mummy water marble Halloween nail art

For mine I started with two coats of Ulta Snow White as the base. I also used it for the water marble, along with Megan Miller Lemon Ice (which I mistakenly thought would come across a ivory) and Essie Mink Muffs, which is one of my favorite brown shades. I added one coat of Poshe quick-dry top coat at this point.Mummy water marble Halloween nail art

For the eyes, I applied Orly Liquid Vinyl, a black creme, using a small nail art brush. For the eyeballs, I used the head of a pin for the larger dots and a small dotting tool for the smaller dots, Ulta Snow White and Ulta Steppin Out. I finished it with one coat of a regular top coat.

Mummy water marble Halloween nail art

As far as the water marble goes, I think I actually had sections that looked better than what I was able to get onto the nails, but that’s just one of the many challenging aspects of water marbling that I have yet to conquer. I dipped multiple nails at one time on this one, so not sure if that helped because it was quicker or hurt because I might have gotten better design placement if I had been doing one at a time.

Mummy water marble Halloween nail art

When you do water marbling, do you usually do multiple nails at once? If so, any tips?

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Bloody Nails

Here’s my Day 3 entry for the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. There are 10 themes, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.

Halloween Nail Art: Blood Smears

Today’s theme is bloody nails. I tried to do something a little different here since there are so many creepy examples out there of Halloween manicures or vampire-themed nail art featuring drippy and splattered blood. I went for smears instead, as if someone had smeared blood on a wall.

Halloween Nail Art: Blood Smears

I started with two coats of OPI Berlin There Done That, a nice neutral taupe that I thought could very easily stand in for a wall color.

Then I used Ulta Steppin Out for the blood smears. I think both the color and the thicker consistency of this polish mimic real blood.

Halloween Nail Art: Blood Smears

My technique on this was to drop some of the red polish onto a piece of wax paper. I then used the straight edge of a piece of paper and dragged it through the polish, then dragged it across the nail. In some cased I dragged left to right, other times dragged downward.

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Matte Dotticure

So this is my Day 2 post for the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/Sassy Nails. There are 10 themes, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.

Today’s theme is a matte dotticure. I was really happy with the way this one came out, and it was really fun to wear.

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

I started with two coats of Orly Liquid Vinyl on all of my nails except my ring finger, which is two coats of China Glaze Riveting.

I added one coat of Poshe quick-dry top coat. As I did, some of the China Glaze Riveting transferred to the brush and then to my nail as I was painting the next black nail, and it left behind a bit of the orange shimmer. I really loved the way it looked, so I decided to do some minor frankening: I mixed a bit of the two colors together on some wax paper and then painted that on top of the black nails so they’d all have a bit of the orange shimmer on them. Topped all of that off with Poshe when I was finished.

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Then I added dots. I started with Ulta Snow White dots using the head of a pin, then used a small dotting tool for the inner dots: black on the orange nail, orange on the black nails. The accent nail almost looks like a bunch of googly eyes, don’t you think?

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

To make it matte, I added one coat of Essie Matte About You. Unfortunately I didn’t let it dry long enough before I applied it, and it smeared some of the dots. 😦 The matte effect wasn’t very strong, perhaps I needed to add more.

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Here’s a look at the manicure before I added the matte top coat.

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Halloween Dotticure Dotting Nail Art with China Glaze Riveting

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge: Water Marble

So this is my Day 1 post for the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. There are 10 themes and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.

So today’s theme is water marble. I’m not that happy with the way it came out. I tried to fix it, and I think that made it worse. Alas.

Halloween Water Marble Nail Art

I started with two coats of Ulta Snow White and then moved on to the water marble. I went with Halloween colors: black – Orly Liquid Vinyl; orange – Zoya Jancyn; purple – Sally Hansen Rock Hard; and white – Ulta Snow White.

Halloween Water Marble Nail Art

When I was done, I thought some of them looked a little messy so I tried to camouflage with some dots, using Sally Hansen Rock Hard. The polish was a bit on the sheer side, so then I started with a dot of Ulta Snow White and laid a dot of Rock Hard on top of it. Mistake. They didn’t look that great, and the smeared a bit on my index finger when I added a coat of Poshe fast dry top coat, making it look messier than it really was. I should have just left well enough alone and not tried to add the dots.

Halloween Water Marble Nail Art

Cleanup was a little tough with this; I suppose that’s par for the course.

Halloween Water Marble Nail Art

I did like the way the middle finger came out,and the ring finger almost looked like a spider web.

Nail-aween Halloween Nail Art Challenge

Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!

Category:

Holiday, NOTD, Water Marbling

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